Chilly weather certainly hasn’t been absent this season. Thursday’s raw chill drives that point home. But, the number of truly chilly days is running behind the long term average here. Not only are the first days of November averaging 3.5° above normal, thanks in large part to cloud cover and easterly winds which have reduced the typical nighttime temperature decline, but meteorological autumn has hosted only two days with highs under 50°. Not since 1994 has a fall season produced so few sub-50° daytime readings. Over the 134 year term of Chicago weather records, the Sept. 1-Nov. 4 period has produced an average of 6 sub-50° days by now.
The storm behind Chicago’s clouds and rain drenched sections of the Gulf Coast Wednesday. A record 3.98” swamped Meridian, Miss. And, recent heavy rains have some rivers just above flood stage in southern Illinois.
-Tom Skilling
